A Mad Men Mixer: The Unofficial TV Geek Army Guide (Season One)

By TV Geek Army

A Mad Men Mixer an obscenely and obsessively detailed guide to Mad Men's intoxicating debut season.

We mix it up and break it down:

The characters
Who is Don Draper? This is the story of Mad Men in many ways, but from there we expand to major players such as Betty Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olson. But of course we can't neglect those who made Season One a blast, such as Helen and Glen Bishop, Dr. Arnold Wayne, and Lois "ciao ciao" Sadler.

The relationships
So much of the power and resonance of Mad Men comes from how real the relationships feel. Roger and Joan, Don and Rachel Menken and Midge Daniels (and don't forget Betty!), Peggy and Pete. Head back with us and enjoy it all again with sparkling perspective and refreshing insights.

The art of advertising
Rewind and unwind with the Power Moves and Master of the Universe moments that Don unleashes upon Sterling Cooper's clients, and get up close and personal with the creative process, the art of the pitch, and the backstabbing and hobnobbing that's simply a day in the life for the mad men of Madison Avenue. (And don't forget to take off your shoes before entering Bert Cooper's office!)

American life, '60s-style
What was it like to live in New York in 1960? Pretty swell... if you're white and male and a partner at a thriving ad agency. We dial into the demanded conformity and isolation of family life in the suburbs, the smoky and whiskey-soaked office life in Manhattan, and ask fun questions like: how often do Don and Betty brush their teeth?

The history and politics
This is this '60s before they were "The '60s," when the choice was Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy! versus a pre-tricky Dick Nixon for the White House.

The technology
Head back with us to the days when "call waiting" was simply an awkward way of saying you're waiting for a phone call.

The entertainment and arts
What books and movies and TV shows and music were influential to Mad Men's characters?

Moments of hilarity
For a drama, Mad Men certainly delivers its share of comedy. Harry Crane hanging out with Don in his tighty whities? Yes, we have that covered.

Iconic sights and production notes
For the Mad Men obsessives (come on, join the club with us!): filming locations, vintage props, and insight from Mad Men's cast and crew.

Questions and tidbits
From the big picture to the nitty gritty. How does Pete know where to find brand new Sterling Cooper employee Peggy's apartment on the night of his bachelor party? How does Don stay in shape? Where does Joan rank in the Sterling Cooper hierarchy? How have Peggy and Kenny Cosgrove's relationship evolved from the time of Belle Jolie to Topaz in Season Four? We need to know the answers to these things, and we're guessing you do as well!

• Language: English
• Publisher: TV Geek Army
• Release date: Sep 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452469379

Book preview

A Mad Men Mixer

The Unofficial TV Geek Army Guide (Season One)

By TV Geek Army

Smashwords edition

Copyright ©2011 Forwerd Media, LLC

All rights reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced without express written consent of Forwerd Media, LLC

Table of Contents

Introduction (or: what A Mad Men Mixer is and what it is not)

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Ladies’ Room

Marriage of Figaro

New Amsterdam

5G

Babylon

Red in the Face

The Hobo Code

Shoot

Long Weekend

Indian Summer

Nixon vs. Kennedy

The Wheel

About TV Geek Army

Introduction (or: what A Mad Men Mixer is and what it is not)

What A Mad Men Mixer Is

It’s an obscenely and obsessively detailed guide to Mad Men’s intoxicating debut season.

We mix it up and break it down:

The characters

Who is Don Draper? This is the story of Mad Men in many ways, but from there we expand to major players such as Betty Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olson. But of course we can't neglect those who made Season One a blast, such as Helen and Glen Bishop, Dr. Arnold Wayne, and Lois ciao ciao Sadler.

The relationships

So much of the power and resonance of Mad Men comes from how real the relationships feel. Roger and Joan, Don and Rachel Menken and Midge Daniels (and don't forget Betty!), Peggy and Pete. Head back with us and enjoy it all again with sparkling perspective and refreshing insights.

The art of advertising

Rewind and unwind with the Power Moves and Master of the Universe moments that Don unleashes upon Sterling Cooper's clients, and get up close and personal with the creative process, the art of the pitch, and the backstabbing and hobnobbing that's simply a day in the life for the mad men of Madison Avenue. (And don't forget to take off your shoes before entering Bert Cooper's office!)

American life, '60s-style

What was it like to live in New York in 1960? Pretty swell… if you're white and male and a partner at a thriving ad agency. We dial into the demanded conformity and isolation of family life in the suburbs, the smoky and whiskey-soaked office life in Manhattan, and ask fun questions like: how often do Don and Betty brush their teeth?

The history and politics

This is the '60s before they were The '60s, when the choice was Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy! versus a pre-tricky Dick Nixon for the White House.

The technology

Head back with us to the days when call waiting was simply an awkward way of saying you're waiting for a phone call.

The entertainment and arts

What books and movies and TV shows and music were influential to Mad Men's characters?

Moments of hilarity

For a drama, Mad Men certainly delivers its share of comedy. Harry Crane hanging out with Don in his tighty whities? Yes, we have that covered.

Iconic sights and production notes

For the Mad Men obsessives (come on, join the club with us!): filming locations, vintage props, and insight from Mad Men's cast and crew.

Questions and tidbits

From the big picture to the nitty gritty. How does Pete know where to find brand new Sterling Cooper employee Peggy's apartment on the night of his bachelor party? How does Don stay in shape? Where does Joan rank in the Sterling Cooper hierarchy? How have Peggy and Kenny Cosgrove's relationship evolved from the time of Belle Jolie to Topaz in Season Four? We need to know the answers to these things, and we're guessing you do as well!

And much much Much more. (Did we mention much much?)

So this is to say:

We assume you are a fan of Mad Men and that if you aspire to ascend to become a TV Geek Army Master of Mad Men, you’re in exactly the right place!

We assume that you’ve already watched Season One and that you’ve watched or are familiar with the subsequent seasons as well. This is a retrospective take on Season One that ties in all of the fantastic events that come later.

If you haven’t already guessed: there are majorly huge and hugely major (and delicious) spoilers of all kinds lying ahead, so fair warning here up front!

What A Mad Men Mixer Is Not

We don’t provide a straight recap of every episode, and it’s not a book report. We assume that you’ve imbibed the season and that you’re a fan of the show (though if you’re a Strange Human who hates Mad Men we welcome you inside our pages anyway… and we hope to sway your opinion!).

A Mad Men Mixer is an enhancement to what you already know. For example, we see a number of flashbacks of Don’s/Dick’s past throughout the season. Just telling you about them would be information that you could get from simply popping in the DVD or ordering up an episode through the iTunes store and so on.

Instead, we look at why those flashbacks were used and what they came to tell us about what we see in brave new present of 1960. Why did a lonely outcast run off to the brutality of the Korean War, only to jettison his identity and assume that of another man (transforming into what we term a Master of the Universe in the process)? And most importantly, how does this affect him and the way he treats the people around him? That’s what turns us on, and we hope that you’ll enjoy the deep dive (off the building from the show’s credits, perhaps?) as well – from Don’s masterful Power Move against Roger in Red in the Face to a fateful Pete/Don showdown in Nixon vs. Kennedy, and that’s just for starters.

Now, isn’t it about time we got in our collective wheel… er, time machine, and day tripped together back to 1960?

Step on in, grab a cocktail (tailored just for you by young Sally Draper), and relax.

The sales pitch of a life, a lie, and a lifetime is about to begin.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Season One, Episode One

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Mad Men’s pilot episode, is an exquisitely executed introduction that sets up everything to come. Even as an enormous amount of information and detail are thrown at us, it all goes down smooth as silk (or as a properly prepared Old Fashioned, perhaps?) as we delve into the marvelously original and painstakingly detailed world of Don Draper, the Sterling Cooper advertising agency, and New York City in March 1960.

Don is a Master of the Universe, the creative genius that can and will save the day using his moxie and towering ego and craftiness. Yet by the time we arrive home with him at the end of the hour (and find him to have a beautiful wife and two kids only then!) there’s sufficient mystery, vulnerability, and questions about this mad man that we can’t wait to find out what happens next.

I don’t want to go to school tomorrow. – Don to Midge

In Which We Meet…

Don Draper(Jon Hamm) – The entire story rests on this dapper gentleman's shoulders, and it can’t be stated enough how (seemingly) effortlessly and well Hamm pulls off Mad Men’s lead role.

Midge Daniels(Rosemarie DeWitt) – Don’s Village-dwelling, freewheeling girlfriend, er, mistress.

Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) – Fresh out of Miss Deaver’s secretarial school, she becomes Don’s newest new girl. Drinking game you can play during this episode: take a goodly chug every time someone tells Peggy that she could stand to show a little more leg at the office.

Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) – Sterling Cooper’s office manager, she rates as the highest ranking woman at the firm.

Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) – (Smug) copywriter and part of the junior execs gang at Sterling Cooper.

Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton) – Fresh-faced accounts man who loves to turn on the charm (or charm, depending) with the ladies. Also one of the junior execs gang.

Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) – Media buyer and one of the junior execs crew as well (so don’t let his bow tie and glasses fool you).

Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt) – Sterling Cooper’s art director, he spends a lot of time talking about how much he’s into the ladies. It’s possible in fact that he doth protest a bit too much.

Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) – Another accounts man on the rise and one of the junior execs gang, he’s fiercely ambitious and, let’s face it, a little slimy around the edges.

Roger Sterling (John Slattery) – A silver fox and silver-tongued partner of the firm (his name is on the building, as he likes to tell people), Roger always seems to get the funniest lines each episode (and Slattery delivers the hell out of them every time).

Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff) – Runs Menken’s department store and seems to have alternatively wary and admiring eyes for our man Don.

Hildy (Julie McNiven) – Pete Campbell’s long suffering secretary.

Lee Garner, Sr. (John Cullum) – An older Southern gentleman who runs Lucky Strike, a massively important anchor client for Sterling Cooper.

Lee Garner, Jr. (Darren Pettie) – Poppa Lee’s son and heir, he differs from his father in fundamental ways that become important over time.

Betty Draper (January Jones) – Don’s wife and mother to Bobby and Sally, she’s lonely and bored and isolated in the seemingly idyllic suburban town of Ossining, New York.

You gotta let ‘em know what kind of guy you are, then they’ll know what kind of girl to be. – Ken Cosgrove

Don Draper

Don and Midge

Don shows up at Midge’s apartment late at night, and from what we can tell they are romantically involved, though it's something of an open relationship. Don is worried about his pitch for a cigarette campaign and looks to Midge for help. While he eventually leaves her apartment uninspired, it's obvious that he admires her intelligence as much as her other attributes.

In retrospect, it's striking to not only learn that the first woman that we meet who is romantically tangled with Don is a mistress of sorts (and not wife Betty, who we only meet later), but that he sought her out as opposed to looking to his wife for consoling and advice. This is a pattern that we’ll see repeated throughout Season One. Don seeks out Midge again after he gets a surprise bonus from Bert Cooper in The Hobo Code, and later rushes over to Rachel Menken's apartment in Long Weekend when he thinks his true identity is on the verge of being blown by Pete Campbell. And as we’ll also see, Don is attracted to strong and independent women outside of his marriage.

Don and Rachel

Don reveals much about himself, perhaps unintentionally, when he meets with Rachel Menken in a swanky Manhattan lounge. It’s easy to overlook this scene as it comes just moments after the epic and iconic board room scene with Lucky Strike, but it tells us a tremendous amount about Don’s philosophy and how he wants to be seen by others.

Don and Rachel did not get along very well during their initial introduction at Sterling Cooper. All bluster and ego at first blush, Don did not take well to being told that his ideas weren’t well received, and especially by a woman (and a Jewish one at that). After the triumph with the Garners and Lucky Strike, Roger Sterling smartly dispatches Don to have a kiss-and-make-up get together offsite while his Creative Director is on a hot streak.

Therefore, when they meet again we see a Don who is suave and charming as ever, yet does not feel the need to sweet talk his potential client. And he’s certainly not trying to seduce Rachel – at least at this moment in time. Instead we get a Don who transitions from glib to surprisingly revealing, though it takes a fellow outsider as sharp and perceptive as Rachel to pick up on it.

After Don probes her as to the reason why she would choose to forego marriage in order to work in a world of men, Rachel admits that she has never been in love. And it’s here where we get a taste of the unvarnished Don Draper… as constructed and deployed by his true identity, Dick Whitman. Don dismisses the very idea of love – likening it to a sales pitch to sell nylons – and ends his little monologue on a note of nihilism that is core to his character: I’m living like there’s no tomorrow because there isn’t one.

This might be Don Draper’s motto in the early going of Mad Men, or at least the one that Dick Whitman invented for Don Draper painstakingly constructed his